The IRA (Provos) a few years ago blew the hell out of Canary Wharf, which is kind of the equivalent of the US financial district. The damage was quite extensive if one saw the pictures. The difference between them and Al Qaeda is they did it in the middle of the night - and called the police ahead of time - enough time to clear people out, but not enough to defuse the bomb. Unfortunately two people were killed. But the Irish Republican Army attempted to minimize civilian casualties, in the same way that the US Army attempts to minimize civilian casualties. When the IRA is trying to kill someone, they go after people like Mountbatten, Thatcher, John Major or military targets, sometimes succeeding, sometimes not. The IRA cares what people in the west think of them just as the US army does.

Nevermind, it's a misunderstanding. By "that sort of stuff" in the thread you refer to I meant forewarnings in general, not things relating to Israel/Israelis. Anyway, this particular story about the Scotland Yard warning finance minister Netantahu was reported by an Israeli news source but would now appear to not be correct.

bombed Ireland to rid the world of the terrorist IRA? How would that have been any different than what we've done in Iraq? Could it be that some sensible Brits realized that wasn't the way to fight terrorism?

and tell me if you'll agree that 5,000 lb bombs kill a lot more people, indiscriminately I might add, then ground troops have. And nice how you assume that I don't know history before Y2K...get a grip...I certainly wasn't attempting to diminish the pain and suffering of the people of N. Ireland, but you'd be hard-pressed to convince the rest of the world that the response to terrorism in Iraq (which didn't exist there until after we invaded) is proportional as compared to the British response to the IRA.

like the IRA either. It's more of a franchise where any crackpot can pick up the name if they want to. I'm sure Iraq has made their recruitment quite a lot easier.

"Al-Qaida", or the original group of Afghan war veterans, has during most of its existence been busy attacking whomever were the target du jour of American or British overt or covert agression in the Muslim world. This may or may not be coincidential, but as far as 9/11 is concerned, the evidence for American collusion at some level is strong enough to be quite convincing to me. Just the fact that one of Bin Laden's closest associates throughout the 90s was Fort Bragg-trained US Special Forces officer Ali Mohamed, a US citizen who had previously been a major in the Egyptian Army unit that killed president Sadat and a member of Ayman al-Zawahiri's Islamic Jihad, should be enough to open people's eyes concerning the origins of the current jihadist international. The world of al-Qai'ida is literally packed with agents provocateurs and double-agents, like the London-based firebrand cleric Abu Qutada who according to English Muslims and French intel has close ties to the MI5. Nowadays, there's scarcely any need for provocateurs - the ball is rolling, so to speak. And Iraq provides all the "provocation" any jihadist could ever have hoped for.

Intelligence services and terrorism experts are currently warning about Iraq turning into a more effective training and recruitment ground for terrorists than Afghanistan ever was. This is a direct result of the war in Iraq whether or not AQ is an Iraqi nationalist movement.

And they've never been slow to take responsibility for bombs. True, it's bad that Muslim terrorism is everyone's first assumption (remember the immediate reaction after Oklahoma?), but, under the current circumstances, it does seem the most likely cause.

By the way, the Muslim Council of Britain "utterly condemns today's indiscriminate acts of terror":

From what I've heard & seen, Londoners are not 100% white Christian. An Irish Nationalist who opposed an IRA bombing campaign long ago pointed out that any bombs in London would likely kill quite a few Irish.

Strategically, bombs are inexact weapons that rarely kill the right people. Do I need to point out the moral objections?

everyone is absolutely positive it's muslim terrorists and it's because of iraq - but there's so much other stuff in confluence.

until the forensics back up the claim of this mysterious "al quaeda in europe" (which still sounds like a restaurant franchise to me, no matter how many times i here it), i'm not buyign it.

it could have been the CIA, it could have been the IRA, it could have been chechens, it could have been really upset anti WTO people, angry parisiens, a loony who jsut wanted to see what would happen....

personally i'm waiting till we know for sure - this bombing is a little too amateurish to me. not the collateral damage we're used to seeing from islamic organizations with well thought out plans. I'm sorry if it seems like i'm making this attack insignificant - i don't mean to, but it's sticking in my craw.

I'm not 100% sold on Islamic fundamentalists being the cause, though I do think that's the prime and obvious suspect. I do, however, think the IRA can be ruled out for a multitude of reasons.This doesn't fit their M.O. on a variety of points -- it's not a political target, no advanced warning was given, and no claim was made by the Provos that they were responsible.

Also, given Sinn Fein's political situation in Ulster, it would be foolish to allow such an attack to take place.

Also, the Provos haven't staged an attack in at least a decade, though tiny splinter groups such as the Real IRA have -- but none of those groups would be capable of an attack of this magnitude.

So, for al those reasons, I'd say we can certainly rule the IRA out as a prime suspect.

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